


Information Wants To Be Free

by BeamBrain



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:28:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28636290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeamBrain/pseuds/BeamBrain
Summary: According to the Pokedex, porygons have copy protection that prevents them from being duplicated. All copy protection gets cracked sooner or later, though. What will Silph Co.'s attempts to uphold their intellectual property mean for a boy and his bootleg porygon?
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	Information Wants To Be Free

Alex had never wanted a pokemon until the day he met a porygon.

A week before Christmas, his mother had taken his ten-year-old self to the local department store with her when she went to do some last-minute shopping. It had ended up taking the better part of an afternoon, much of which she spent squinting at price tags as she tried to buy presents for several people on a budget wholly unsuited for the task. In the end, she’d pulled it off, enduring only a minimum of can-we-go-soons from her son. As his promised reward, she took him to the store’s electronics section as a last stop before they headed home.

Everything inside was well beyond the family’s price range, since the Celadon Department Store didn’t sell aging fossils that took fifteen minutes to start up on a good day. The spectacle would have to be enough, but for Alex, it always was. Prismatic polygons danced on a row of computer monitors, showcasing the power of their dedicated 3D video cards. A crowd clustered around a Nintendo 64 display, watching a black girl Alex’ age play one of the battle simulators that had put the company on the map. The latest and greatest pokedex sat front and center on a shelf of them, its camera dome shining like a sapphire, the packaging boasting of image recognition software that could pick out a caterpie at a hundred feet.

What captured Alex’ attention that day, though, was the exhibition in the center of the floor.

**NEW FROM SILPH CO.!**

**MEET PORYGON, THE WORLD’S FIRST VIRTUAL POKEMON!**

The banner hung over a large display monitor at the center of a roped-off section of the floor. On the monitor was what looked like a desktop background, much like the one on the family computer at Alex’ home, except for the blocky, pink and blue figure that bobbed in the corner. The figure pushed their stubby blue legs up, then kicked them down, pushing itself from one corner of the screen to another.

Two store employees, fair-skinned men, were inside the roped off area. One sat at a computer directly beneath the monitor, and the other, a man with wild eyes and a blonde buzzcut, walked back and forth along the rope while half-shouting to the crowd.

“Programmer’s best friend. Couldn’t ask for a better debugger.” The words tumbled out like an avalanche, and his hands made chopping motions at the start of every sentence. “But like any porygon, Conway here doesn’t just work hard, they play hard.” He looked over his shoulder. “Show ’em what the Porygon Toybox can do, Frank.”

The man at the computer nodded and right-clicked the porygon, who looked curiously at the dropdown menu that appeared. From the menu, the man clicked the “ball” option, and a colorful, striped ball like a beach ball popped up on the screen. The man clicked and dragged the ball, rolling it over to the porygon, who caught it between their legs, making a noise halfway between a pidgey’s chirp and a microwave’s beep. The porygon then spun in a circle and released the ball, rolling it back over to the cursor. The man clicked the ball when it reached his cursor, causing the ball to stop, and the porygon did a little celebratory jump.

Applause and laughter rippled through the crowd. Alex stared, open-mouthed, at the display.

“But wait! It gets better.” The presenter clapped his hands. “You don’t even gotta be at a computer to spend time with your porygon friend. Take them on a walk. Take them hiking. Take them to the Indigo League!” He looked up at the monitor and waved. “Come on out, Conway!”

Conway faced the screen and, with another kick of their legs, they jumped _out_ of the screen, landing on the floor. What moments ago had been an image on a computer had just become a real, physical presence, turning their stubby beak to look among the crowd. A few of the assembled people gasped moments before the entire group erupted into applause.

Conway hopped up to the edge of the cordon, right up to where Alex stood, looking up at him and those near him curiously. Many arms reached over the rope, several brushing against Conway’s head or legs, most of those getting a nuzzle or a chirp in return. It took Alex a few moments to get Conway’s attention, but finally, the porygon looked at him long enough for Alex to give them a shy smile.

“Hey there, little guy.”

Alex reached over the rope with an open palm, not quite touching Conway. Conway pressed the top of their beak against Alex’ hand, giving it a nuzzle, and Alex slowly rolled his palm up and down Conway’s beak. Conway was smooth and glassy against Alex’ pale skin, with a bit of electrical fuzz – almost like petting a TV screen.

Conway abruptly leaped the rope, knocking over several barrier posts, and jumped into Alex. Surprised shouts came from the crowd. The boy fell backwards and yelped, and Conway pressed their beak against Alex’ neck, nestling into his lap. Alex’ shock quickly gave way to laughter, and he pulled Conway into an embrace, smiling as Conway beeped and clicked against him.

The presenter was on top of them in an instant, pulling Conway back into the center stage and laughing. “Whoa, easy there, buddy!” The man at the computer jumped out of his chair to pull the barrier posts upright again, and the presenter turned back to the crowd and clapped his hands. “See? Friendly as can be. Now, you battlers out there, here’s something you’re gonna love. Porygons have not one, but two conversion abilities! Makes ‘em ready for anything! Like, say you’re up against...”

Alex was no longer listening. His mind was already made up.

* * *

It was April, and Alex’ eleventh birthday approached. His mother asked what he wanted, and the words were barely out of her mouth before he said “a porygon.” She asked him if he wanted anything else, and he said no. She asked him if he was absolutely sure, and he was.

She never outright said that they couldn’t afford a porygon, but it wasn’t difficult to infer. Alex had stared longingly at porygon builder CDs on the store racks many times, seen the chipper looking digital birds emblazoning the front. He’d seen the price tags, asking more money than he’d seen in his entire life. He’d heard his mother’s increasingly heavy-handed hints that pidgeys were sociable, easy to take care of, and well-adapted to life in Celadon.

“But I want a porygon,” he’d said the first time, and the second, and the third. Eventually, he just met any attempts to steer him away with barks of “porygon.” Though intellectually he knew that what he was asking wasn’t possible, some part of him still held a childlike conviction that he could make it happen just by wanting it badly enough.

Alex’ birthday came, attended by himself; his parents; and Tara, his best friend who lived a few apartments down; and Tara’s meowth. He shoveled huge forkfuls of cake into his mouth, barely chewing before swallowing, only pausing to speak when asked a direct question. All he could think of was the wrapped gift exactly the size of a CD case on the counter. Tara chowed down almost as quickly.

“It’s gonna be awesome,” she said through a mouthful of cake. “We’ll finally get to battle!”

Alex mumbled something.

“I’ll go easy on you for your first one,” Tara continued with a giggle. She patted her meowth’s head, and her meowth “Dancer here won a Rainbow Badge by himself, so he’d be a bit too strong for you, but I just caught a caterpie I’ve been meaning to train up anyw–”

Alex took his last bite and turned to his parents, fork clattering to his plate. “OkayI’mdonecanIopenmypresentnow?”

His father laughed and tapped his chin, pretending to think it over.

“Ohhh, I guess.”

The words were barely out of his mouth before Alex was out of his seat, nearly running into Tara in his hurry. The wrapping paper was torn aside and discarded in a second, and Alex was left holding a CD case, staring at it in dawning comprehension and joy.

It didn’t look like any of the porygon builder CDs he’d seen. There was no label sleeve, no Silph Co. logo. Inside the generic jewel case was an equally generic CD-R, on the front of which “PORYGON BUILDER” was scrawled in marker.

Alex didn’t question his good fortune, but he did nearly drop the CD in his excitement. “It’s a porygon! I got a porygon!” He shoved the CD in front of Tara for her to see, then gave his parents the most crushing bear hug a skinny eleven-year-old could muster. “Thankyouthankyouthankyou! Can I build them now?”

His mother smiled and nodded. “Computer’s all yours.”

The boy gave his mother another tight hug, snatched the CD back out of Tara’s hands, practically jumping on the spot, and tugged her by the arm. “Come on, let’s go!”

Tara giggled again. “Hey, you’re gonna pull my arm off!”

* * *

“So, do you know what you’re gonna name them?”

Alex nodded. He was seated in the rotating chair in front of his family’s computer, with Tara hanging off of his shoulder. At the bottom of a screen of introductory text, a cursor blinked in a name prompt.

“Chip!” He typed in the letters and hit enter. A green light rapidly blinked on the computer’s CD tray, and the drive whirred to life. A progress bar popped up onscreen. “This is supposed to take an hour or so on most computers, but it might be a bit longer on ours.”

**ESTIMATED TIME REMAINING: 11 HOURS 41 MINUTES**

Alex banged his fist on the table. “Oh, come on!”

Tara groaned. “Guess I’ll have to wait ‘til morning. You’ll come by as soon as it’s done, right? Will you be up that early?”

“I dunno if I’ll get any sleep.”

* * *

At six-thirty in the morning, Alex was once more hunched over in front of the family computer, nose inches away from the screen. The first rays of morning sunlight streamed in through the living room blinds, striping the scuffed floorboards. Alex picked up the soda on the desk beside him with a twitching hand, gulped down a swig, and watched without blinking as the timer’s past few seconds ticked down.

“Five, four, three, two, one...”

**BUILD COMPLETE!**

**Click “Okay” to finish the build process.**

Alex did so. The cursor changed to an hourglass, and Alex was kicked back to the desktop. Seconds ticked by. He waved the cursor in a circle. The cursor changed back to a pointer. He drummed his fingers against the desk. Had something gone wrong? Did the program crash at the very end? Was this computer just too old and too weak to support a porygon? Did–

There they were!

Alex jumped to his feet, knocking over his half-full can and spilling soda onto the desk in the process. He quickly set it back upright, then got up, got a paper towel, and slapped it over the spill. Still standing, he leaned over and touched the cursor to Chip’s nose.

Chip smacked away the cursor, sending it flying to the opposite side of the screen. They closed their eyes, rocked back, and quivered, their stubby polygon legs kicking.

Alex frowned in concern until he realized Chip was laughing. Then he laughed too. “Jerk.”

* * *

At his mother’s insistence, Alex waited until ten AM to ring Tara’s doorbell.

“Aww, hi, Chip – whoa!” Tara stumbled back as Chip jumped into her, the porygon nearly bowling her over. “Wow, they’re hyper, aren’t they?” she asked, rubbing the back of Chip’s neck. Chip chirped, then bounded back and began nosing around the apartment.

Alex nodded. “Yeah, way different than the one they had at Celadon. Jumped out of the computer and woke up Mom and Dad about a minute later.”

Tara grinned. “So if they’ve got all that energy, they can battle, right?”

“Well, actually, Tara...” Alex rubbed his shoulder. “I dunno if I’m up for it. I don’t even remember which conversion move does what. I’m not really into battling.”

Tara looked over her shoulder at Chip. “Looks like Chip is, though.” Chip was angled forward on the edge of their feet in front of the television, staring transfixed at the Indigo championship battle that was wrapping up onscreen. A blastoise had just been struck by a solar beam, having withdrawn into their shell to withstand the blow. They skidded across the field from the impact, cutting a furrow into the ground and kicking up clods of earth. The blastoise skidded to a stop a few feet in front of their trainer, who shouted encouragement. As the pokemon’s head lolled out of their shell, though, it became clear that they were no longer in any shape to fight. Alex recognized the match as one that Tara’s parents had taped for her a few years back.

“I think that’s just a porygon thing,” Alex said. “They like computers, TVs, stuff like that. Even jumped into the microwave timer while my dad was making breakfast, but they didn’t stick around for long. Guess it was cramped in there.”

“Oh yeah, that. I meant to ask, how’s the whole ‘jumping in’ thing work anyway?” Tara got her answer a second later as Chip hopped into the screen. Tara ran over to the television, knelt in front of it, and tapped at the screen, with Alex trailing after her.

“You sure it’s just ’cause it’s a TV?”

The xatu’s trainer and his team stood together on the winners’ platform, where the trainer was giving his victory interview. Chip positioned themself as if they were standing with the trainer, twirling on the spot and chirping.

Tara grinned at Alex. “Looks to me like Chip wants their name on a championship plaque.”

Alex scratched the back of his neck. The show cut to the Battler’s Spotlight, an hour-long block split into sections focusing on each member of the champion’s team, and Chip jumped back out. Chip bobbed up and down on the spot a few times, looking up at Alex.

“Well...”

Alex nodded.

“I guess I can give it a shot.”

* * *

Alex walked out of the pawn shop with a pokedex that looked as old as he was.

Much as he would have liked a model that was at least new enough to have information on porygons, that wasn’t going to happen. He’d tried the department store first, but finding nothing in the price range for a boy whose money mostly came from whatever he could beg and scrape from his parents, he’d turned to cheaper options. The device’s red casing was scuffed and scratched, and the screen protector’s latch had snapped off at some point, making it flap unless Alex held it in place with his thumb. The LCD display’s resolution was so low, the pixels so large that a single short sentence took up a third of the screen. Unlike any model sold in the last couple of years, it didn’t have an image recognition module. The accompanying booklet showing photographs of most known kinds of pokemon at least had all of its pages, though, even if it felt like it was about to come apart in Alex’ hands.

It didn’t have much going for it, but like any other pokedex, it could register Alex’ pokemon to him in case they got separated or kidnapped. That was what counted.

Alex had spent what little money he had left on a few pokeballs. Erika did two-on-two battles, so he would need to capture at least one pokemon to be eligible to challenge her. He lay on his bed with pokedex and booklet open in front of him, flipping back and forth between a few entries.

“So...” He looked down at Chip, whose black-and-white, pixelated body bounded about the screen with as much grace as the chunky, monochrome display allowed. “I guess I’ll go with a... diglett? That’s as good as any, right?”

To Alex’ surprise, Chip stopped on the spot and shook their head. The display went blank behind them.

“Oh… did I mess up?”

A block of text filled the screen, and Chip slid off to the side so that Alex could read it. It was a listing of type matchups for grass-type pokemon. Alex frowned and stared down at it.

“Oh, right. Digletts are ground-types, aren’t they? That wouldn’t work so well. So I guess instead, I should...”

He flipped through the booklet again, looking between it and the pokedex.

“Oh! It also says that flying’s good against grass. Okay, so I’ll get a pidgey, then. We can go to the park tomorrow.”

Chip jumped and chirped. The sound came as an electrical buzz, the only noise the pokedex was capable of making.

Alex grinned and rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry, I’m still getting the hang of this. I’ll figure it out, though, I promise. I’ll get you on the winner’s platform, no matter how long it takes.”

Chip chirped again.

* * *

The Cerulean City net cafe was busy, but not so busy that customers were packed shoulder-to-shoulder. A twelve-year-old Alex stood by a computer at the end of the row, watching the technician as he fiddled with the connection console. Yeagar, Alex’ pidgeotto, stood beside the boy, snatching up croissant chunks that Alex offered.

The modem screeched, and the technician slid out of the seat and turned to Alex. “There you go. All set,” he said, brushing a strand of wispy, graying hair out of his tan face. “Sorry about that. Not sure why the connection just up and died like that. I went ahead and added fifteen minutes to your session to make up for it, so you won’t lose out on any time.”

Alex smiled, thanked the man, and slid into the seat, one hand on the mouse and the other coming to rest on Yeager’s head. Having no more croissant to give, he idly stroked the pidgeotto’s feathers. Yeager cooed his appreciation.

“Looks like it worked,” Alex whispered as he stared at the screen. “Chip, you get his password?”

Chip emerged from the edge of the screen and did a proud little jump. Fingers crossed, Alex signed out of the guest account and pulled up the administrator login. When the password prompt came up, Chip zoomed across it, leaving asterisks in their wake. Alex clicked the “sign in” button, and after a short delay, he was taken to the desktop. Alex grinned.

“Awesome. Now, just gotta hope this site’s legit.”

He opened a browser window and entered the URL that the chatroom had provided him. He was greeted with minimal white text on a black background.

**YOU CAN’T KEEP A GOOD ’GON DOWN!**

**We here at PokePixels are happy to announce that our hard work has paid off. We’ve reverse-engineered Silph’s hashing algorithm and developed a program that will generate a valid key for ANY porygon! Just download the exe >>>HERE<<<, run it while your birdy buddy is in your system, and you’ll be able to enter tournaments and use pokemon centers without fear again.**

**Since you stopped by, have a joke to leave you in good spirits.**

**Q: What’s the difference between Silph Co. and Team Rocket?**

**A: One kidnaps and locks away innocent pokemon in the pursuit of profit, and the other is Team Rocket.**

**-BitBlaster151**

Alex downloaded and started the program. This was why he’d needed the administrator password; he couldn’t run unapproved software on a guest account.

A progress bar opened and began to tick up. While Alex waited for it to finish, he played with Chip. The net cafe’s computer didn’t have Porygon Toybox, but the two had one game they could play on just about any computer. Alex would try to touch Chip’s tail with the cursor, and Chip would try to dodge the cursor or kick it away.

Alex had realized Chip was a bootleg not more than a month after Chip was born, when he’d read an article on the internet about Silph Co. beginning to crack down on porygon piracy. It hadn’t been hard to put the pieces together. He never asked his parents where they’d bought the builder that created Chip, but legitimate builders weren’t in his family’s price range, and they certainly didn’t come on discs labeled in marker.

The program finished running. Alex smiled and rubbed Chip’s head with the cursor, and Chip gave the cursor a little nuzzle. “Congrats, Chip. You’re legal again.” Seeing that he still had some time before his session was up, Alex pulled up his go-to tech news site and did a search. An article from the previous day immediately caught his eye.

“ **SILPH SPYING” CONTROVERSY GOES TO COURT**

**Today, the Kanto Pokemon Centers’ Association filed a lawsuit against Silph Co. following the discovery that one of the company’s revitalization machines employed in Vermillion City was covertly scanning treated Porygons for indicators of illegal duplication and sending the data to Silph Co. servers. The KPCA is seeking a permanent injunction against Silph Co. that would require the company to remove such functionality from all of its revitalization machines.**

**The feature was discovered following a wave of threats of legal action against trainers with illegal Porygons. All of them had recently gotten their Porygons treated at the Vermilion City Pokemon Center, where one of the new machines was installed a few months ago. Traffic analysis by the hacktivist group PokePixels confirmed the resulting suspicions.**

**Silph Co. was already under heightened public scrutiny following their adoption of an official policy of holding illegal Porygons in a company-controlled “digital preserve,” and this discovery has only further embroiled the pokemon industry giant in controversy.**

“ **This isn’t just about intellectual property. It’s a matter of public safety,” said Silph Co. Head of Public Relations David Anderson in an official press release. “When they strip the copy protection from the builder program, these careless crackers are also damaging the behavior module, making the resulting porygon erratic and prone to sudden fits of violence. That’s why we’ve decided not to pursue further action against trainers who turn their illegal Porygons over to our care. Our top priority is the safety of trainers and their pokemon.”**

**Helen Hensley, Head Physician of the Vermillion City Pokemon Center and spearhead of the legal effort against Silph Co., disagrees.**

“ **I treat Porygons every week. I’ve never seen one suddenly go berserk. I couldn’t tell a legal Porygon from an illegal one if you held an angry arbok to my head,” she said. “That ain’t my job. We heal pokemon, no ifs, ands, or buts. We don’t snitch on them to corporations. Silph knows that. They thought they could sneak this past us without a fight. Well, now they’re gonna get the fight of their life.”**

Alex had been following the Silph spying case ever since the news broke shortly after his arrival in Cerulean City. It had made him very glad that he’d decided to head north from Saffron after getting the Marsh Badge instead of south to Vermilion.

He closed the browser window and, still having a few minutes left in his session, resumed playing with Chip. His conscience gnawed at him. Getting Chip a valid hash before using any pokemon centers with bugged machines had come down to sheer luck. The only reason Chip needed pokemon center treatments on a regular basis in the first place was because Alex was taking on the Gym Challenge in hopes of eventually competing in the Indigo League.

But then Alex thought back to when he’d gotten the Marsh Badge. It had been a three-on-three battle, and the first gym battle in which his diglett Kola had participated. Kola had just barely beaten Sabrina’s first pokemon, a venonat, and she was only able to do that much after Yeager had considerably weakened the foe. With poison sapping Yeager’s strength by the second and Kola barely able to stand, it had come down to Chip against Sabrina’s kadabra and drowzee.

And Chip had the time of their life.

Kadabra had been outright trivial, with a well-timed conversion2 rendering Chip immune to any attack he could throw at them. When Sabrina recalled her kadabra, Chip had leaned forward on their stubby legs, eyes narrowed in challenge, buzzing triumphantly.

The drowzee had proved much tougher. With both pound and confusion, it had effective moves regardless of which type Chip took. Alex had opted not to waste time with any more conversions and instead just had Chip tackle her until one or the other dropped. As soon as they’d gotten the order, Chip had leaped at the drowzee with a digitized battle cry, crashing into the drowzee and sending the two tumbling into the dirt. The first tackle had sent the two sprawling into the dirt. The drowzee got in several solid blows before Chip broke away, and once Chip had put some distance between them, they crashed into the drowzee once more. No matter how many blows they took, Chip had rushed the drowzee at full speed again and again, charging fearlessly even as pain and fatigue wore down their trembling body.

When at last the drowzee had fallen, Chip slowly rose from her unconscious body, aching and exhausted but triumphant. In spite of all they’d been through, Chip had been even happier about getting the Marsh Badge than Alex had, nearly knocking the boy onto his butt when they’d jumped into his arms.

“I’ll get your name on a plaque,” Alex said, looking at Chip and then at Yeager. He pressed his fingers into Yeager’s neck feathers, and Yeager trilled. “No matter who tries to stop us.”

* * *

Hanging off of a starmie was not the most comfortable way to spend three hours, but their ability to levitate kept fourteen-year-old Alex dry as he and his team crossed the sea from Cinnabar Island to Pallet Town.

Alex slid off of Orichalca, the starmie in question, and stepped onto the beach south of Pallet Town, sand crunching beneath his shoes. The sun was setting, the sky over the ocean a deep red and the waves flashing orange as they rolled in. More than a little sore from the trip, Alex sat down in the sand and stretched out, laying his head on his backpack. Hopefully the journey had been more comfortable for Chip (in his pokedex) and the rest of his pokemon (in their balls). He smiled up at Orichalca.

“Thanks for the ride.”

Orichalca tilted up and down in a rough approximation of a nod. Looking to his left, Alex saw a small colony of krabby scuttling about in the sand.

It had been quite an eventful day, with Alex and his team getting the Volcano Badge largely thanks to Orichalca’s efforts. With only the Boulder Badge and Earth Badge left to go, the end was in sight. A bit of time relaxing on the beach before they found a place to camp was a perfect way to celebrate.

Sure, the court had ruled in Silph Co.’s favor. Sure, Alex had had to patch Chip three more times to foil the company’s ever more sophisticated bootleg detection. Sure, it had taken Alex three years to accomplish what most trainers did in one or two. None of that had stopped him and his team, and now they were on the home stretch. Orichalca had given them a badly needed shot in the arm, one that had made Alex’ detour to Seafoam Islands entirely worth it. The Earth Badge would be a bit of a wildcard, but between Kola (who was now a dugtrio) and Orichalca, he wasn’t worried about their chances at getting the Boulder Badge.

Alex looked back out to the ocean and saw Orichalca bobbing among the waves. “Don’t head out too far. Gotta set up camp soon.”

Orichalca tilted back and forth, which Alex had come to recognize as a “no.” He frowned.

“I’m serious. There’s not much daylight left, and I don’t wanna stumble around in the dark.”

Orichalca tilted back and forth.

Alex sighed. “Look, we’ll celebrate in the morning, alright? I promise. You deserve it after what you pulled off against Blaine’s magmar.”

Orichalca’s crimson gem shone, and visions filled Alex’ head. Alex turning and leaving the beach, heading inland. Orichalca swimming back out into the ocean. Orichalca drifting along the seabed under the Seafoam Islands.

For a long moment, Alex was silent. He looked down, traced a circle in the warm sand with his finger, and looked back at Orichalca. “You’re done. Done training. Done battling.”

A pause. Then a tilt up and down, with Orichalca coming to rest with gem facing down.

Alex exhaled and rubbed his eye with his palm. “That’s a blow.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do now.”

Orichalca showed no apparent reaction.

In hindsight, this turn of events wasn’t terribly surprising. Wild starmie were quite rare, and with a water stone beyond Alex’ finances, he hadn’t asked too many questions when he’d found one willing to come along. Pidgeys like Yeagar and ekans like Kipling were common enough that he’d had the luxury of vetting them to find ones that were in it for the long haul. For a starmie, he’d had to take what he could get, and what he could get had just run out.

Alex waved a hand. “Fine. Go. Get out of here.”

Orichalca turned around and sank into the shallows, then began to lazily spin, drifting out to sea. Alex watched listlessly as they began to fade out of sight. He barely registered his pokedex falling out of his pocket.

Alex was abruptly knocked sideways into the sand.

“What th–”

Chip buzzed harshly beside Alex, glaring out toward Orichalca and leaning forward on the tips of their feet. Alex scooped up his pokedex, brushed sand off of the display, and clapped the screen protector shut.

“Chip, settle down!”

Chip splashed into the water after Orichalca, who had turned around and was now facing Chip. Orichalca answered Chip’s unpleasant buzzes with flashes of their gem, but whatever Orichalca was saying did nothing to quell Chip’s anger.

“Knock it _off_ , Chip!”

Chip leaped toward Orichalca, and Alex gasped. Orichalca spun out of the way, and Chip splashed harmlessly into the water. As Alex fumbled for Chip’s pokeball, Chip buzzed and splashed, then launched themself toward Orichalca once more, but Orichalca spun aside once more.

Before Chip could attack a third time, Alex finally pushed the button to recall them, and Chip was sucked back into their ball in a beam of red light. The ball lurched once in Alex’ hand, but even though Chip could’ve almost certainly broken free with a few more pushes, the ball then grew still.

Perhaps Chip, just like Alex, was reeling at what had just happened. Even when Chip wasn’t out and about, they normally lived in Alex’ pokedex except when they needed a run through a revitalization machine. Alex had never, in his three-plus years of training, had to recall Chip by force until today.

Alex looked at Orichalca and kicked at the sand. “I think you’d better get going.”

Orichalca nodded, then splashed beneath the waves and out of sight.

Alex turned his attention back to the krabby colony and pulled out the pokeball containing Southpaw, his primeape. Nemo, he decided he’d call his catch. He wasn’t in an especially creative mood.

With a pop and a flash of red, Southpaw materialized on the beach in front of Alex. She looked at her surroundings, and seeing the krabby, raised her fists in a boxer’s stance. She looked over her shoulder at Alex, shuffling her feet.

“Change of plans, Southpaw. We’re capturing. Just like when I caught you. Wait for one to step up and challenge you.”

Southpaw nodded and shuffled toward the krabby, punching the air in front of her. Most of them scuttled into the surf or burrowed into the sand. A few raised their pincers and stepped back in a defensive stance. Three of them clacked their pincers and scuttled toward Southpaw.

Alex took Chip’s pokeball in his hand and rolled it in his palm. Assuming they got the last two badges in time, their chances in the League weren’t good. Even the strongest krabby here would be undertrained compared to the rest of his team. To make matters worse, porygons had had four years to prove themselves in the League, and they had badly underperformed every year. That was why Silph had recently announced the Porygon2 upgrade. With that upgrade would almost certainly come even further measures against cracked porygons, meaning more time wasted hunting down patches and keeping track of which centers were and weren’t safe to use until those patches could be procured.

None of that would matter. Alex wouldn’t let it.

“I’ll get you in the Battlers’ Spotlight,” he said, clipping Chip’s ball back onto his belt, “no matter the odds.”

* * *

Alex and his team were eliminated in the first round.

He sat on the floor by the window of the Indigo Plateau Pokemon Center, all of the seats having already been taken. He held Chip in his lap, arms wrapped tightly around them and stroking the back of their head as they quivered and softly blipped into his chest. Kipling, his arbok, was curled around him, basking in the warm June sunlight that streamed through the window.

Traveling partners clustered together at small tables, discussing their victories or losses, many of them eating lunch. Young men and women paced the floor as they talked on cellphones, letting friends or family know that either they had advanced to the next round or were preparing their journeys home. At the sprawling row of counters, revitalization machines hummed and pokeballs clattered in trays as both winners and losers of the first round lined up to heal their pokemon. Pokemon of all shapes and sizes wandered the center or stood at their trainers’ sides. Most of the pokemon species were native to Kanto, with a smattering of Johto types. The solitary Hoenn pokemon was a sceptile tugging at their trainer’s arm and pointing at a vending machine.

As he comforted Chip, Alex gazed out the window, Trainers and their pokemon unwound from the day’s competition by playing or picnicking on the center’s grassy lawn, but Alex paid them little mind, already thinking ahead.

Nemo was already a kingler, so another year of training would almost certainly be enough to bring her up to the rest of the team’s level. The Porygon2 upgrade would be out well before next year’s tournament, and a cracked version would undoubtedly soon follow. If half of what he’d heard about the upgrade was true, it’d make Chip every bit as powerful as they were determined. Alex would just have to follow the news. He’d just have to keep patching Chip. He’d been doing this for over three years now. He had a handle on it.

Alex turned his head, and his gaze happened to land on the pokemon center’s bulletin board. One posting caught his eye.

**ILLEGAL PORYGON HOTLINE**

**As part of our continued commitment to public well-being, Silph Co.® is offering a reward for information about illegal Porygons™.**

**If you know or suspect that a Porygon™ has been illegally copied, call the number below to report it. If your tip leads to a successful recovery and relocation of an illegal Porygon™, you will receive a voucher for a free Silph Co.® product of your choice.**

**REMEMBER : For your own safety, you should never attempt to confront, trap, or capture an illegal Porygon™ yourself.**

**Eligible products are as follows:**

Alex held Chip tighter. He stared at the flier for a long time.

Suddenly, winning the Indigo League didn’t seem so important.

Suddenly, he realized what he needed to do.

There were preparations to make, of course. His journey hadn’t left him much time to hone his computer skills. He’d have to find someone to take his pokemon (Chip excluded) onto their teams. He’d picked them because they were born battlers, after all, and they probably wouldn’t be happy just lazing around his apartment. Well, maybe Kipling would.

The hardest part would be breaking the news to Chip. Depending on how they took it, the Porygon2 upgrade would still be helpful, though for its cyberspace navigation improvements rather than its battle features. Hopefully, Chip would be okay with fighting Silph in lieu of fighting in the arena.

And hopefully, Alex would have what it took to join PokePixels.


End file.
